Why the Hypocrisy Defense is political suicide for liberalism

Zombie's flowcharts explain it all with certitude: If there ever was a moment to really dig down into the fundamental structure of the Hypocrisy Defense, this is it. So let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? (Also read Roger L. Simon: "The Wives’ Tale: Weiner and Strauss-Kahn")

All across the internet over the last few hours, liberal commenters and bloggers have fallen back on one of their most trusted logical arguments in situations like this in which a Democrat is caught in a sex scandal: “At least he’s not a hypocrite.”

This sampling of (unedited) comments taken from today’s New York Times‘ and San Francisco Chronicle‘s articles about Anthony Weiner’s public confession are typical:

“Much to do about nothing. Please wake me up if you find out that he mishandled/stole taxpayer money, or had previously participated in some sort of moral clensing crusade.”

…and…

“Unless an elected official is a hypocrite (i.e., an anti-gay politician who espouses “family values” but solicits men for sex in public restrooms), I don’t care about his private life, including whether he sends naked pictures of himself to women who aren’t his wife.”

…and…

“I certainly find it reprehensible, particularly the lying. But he didn’t run on a Family Values moral superiority platform, like Ensign; there is less hypocracy and more simple stupidity here.”

A quick search of the liberal blogosphere and in the comments sections of MSM articles will turn up countless similar examples. If you spend any time on the Internet, you’ve undoubtedly encountered it yourself over and over, as others have noted. And it hasn’t just emerged in regards to Weinergate: It’s actually one of the bedrocks of the liberal worldview: Conservatives are hypocrites concerning moral issues, whereas liberals are not.

Which got me to thinking:

This has to be the weakest philosophical argument I’ve ever encountered.

Not just weak: self-extirpating.

If there ever was a moment to really dig down into the fundamental structure of this argument, this is it. So let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?

Sleight-of-mind

What liberals really really love about this stance is its climactic declaration: Our opponents are hypocrites!

Here is how the liberals present their case:

But what they don’t want you to think about — and what they themselves don’t even want to acknowledge — is that this “hypocrites” howl is the second half of a two-part argument. And in that second half, they are the victors. But in the first half….

Well, for the “at least we’re not hypocrites” sentiment to make sense, there must be an agreed-upon starting point — one which the liberals themselves are confirming each time they make this argument. And what must that starting point necessarily be? For conservatives to be hypocrites when they do something immoral, then that means they must profess a moral ideology in the first place. And — here’s the key — for the liberals to be let off the hook when they do something immoral, then that means they must profess an ideology with no moral claims whatsoever.

Thus, the diagram above only showed you the climactic second half of the liberals’ sleight-of-mind trick. The full statement — including the first half which you’re not supposed to think about — would be diagrammed like this:

Not quite so effective an argument when seen this way, is it?

Now, I’m not here to defend hypocrisy — I hate it as much as the next person. I’m only here to point out that in order to lay claim to their “but at least we’re not hypocrites” defense, liberals must necessarily paint themselves into an impossible corner, defining themselves as the ideology of amorality.

Remember, that’s not my characterization of liberalism — that’s liberals’ own characterization of themselves when they use this argument.

Does that mean that the “fallen conservative” is inherently more appealing or “superior” in some way to the “honestly amoral liberal”? No. It actually comes down to each voter’s preference.

Consider these two statements from two different potential husbands:

“I know I promised to stop drinking forever, honey, but I fell off the wagon again; please forgive me, and I’ll really really try to stay sober from now on, but no guarantees.”

vs.

“I’m a tertiary alcoholic, a stone-cold drunk; always have been, always will be. You’re not likely to ever see me sober. Take it or leave it.”

If you had to choose, which would you marry?

Obviously, neither is very appealing, but the liberal stance is that the second potential husband is preferable, because at least he’s honest. The conservative stance is: The first potential husband is preferable, because at least he’s trying.

Within the parameters of this “Hypocrisy Defense”…Which do you think the general public prefers: An ideology that at least tries to champion a moral code, but whose adherents sometimes fail to live up to it; or an ideology that by its own definition is inherently immoral and whose adherents don’t even have a moral code to violate?

The liberals are taking a HUGE gamble that a majority of Americans will throw in their lot with the party of immorality. But I have the feeling they’ve lost that bet — not just in Weinergate, but at a deep structural level in society for a long time to come.

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This argument seems a little too cute.
It’s not that liberals have no morals, it’s just that they don’t preach about abstinence before marriage or that gay sex is immoral, or that pornography is bad, etc.
Bill Clinton got rightly skewered on Monica Lewinsky because he and the liberals DID preach about sexual harrassment, and that’s what caught him.

The result of the Leftist argument ends up this way: if you encourage others to live moral lives, and then sin, you are guilty beyond forgiveness. If you encourage others to live immoral lives (the logical definition of claiming that ‘morality’ is a personal decision, if it exists at all), then sin, you are forgiven because you are not a hypocrite. No, actually, the Lib is guilty of two sins — whatever his particular offense might be, and leading others to sin by what Catholics call “scandal”. Actually, by any moral analysis, the second sin is much worse, as it laeds an unknowable number of others to sin, by reinforcing their innate inclinations to evil, while devaluing moral restraints. In fact, the Leftie is guilty of sin even if he lives a spotless personal life, because his promotion of immorality is a continuing offense.

Hmmm. I wonder why Weiner found it necessary to energetically lie, verbally abuse anyone who questioned him and impugn the reputations of those who reported what turned out to be completely accurate facts about him, then? Wasn’t he implying that if he had done those things, it would paint him in a bad light? Was that hypocrisy, then?

It’s true that in general, Democrats do not seek to control other peoples’ sex lives, although the Weiner scandal was not about sex, it was about sending creepy pictures like an adolescent basement wanker to young women he didn’t know. But Democrats do seek to control every non-sexual aspect of everyone else’s lives. But when they cheat on their taxes, say, like our current Treasury Secretary and head of the IRS, they are not called hypocrites. Or if they are, it doesn’t seem to have any effect on them. When Al Gore owns giant houses and flies on private jets, does he resign in disgrace for his hypocrisy?

It really isn’t about the hypocrisy, either. It’s about the fact that leftists feel they can and should be able to do absolutely anything they want, while preaching the opposite, and get away with it. Their media enablers energetically aid and abet that double standard. Which makes their accusations of hypocrisy against conservatives…hypocrisy.

I think you’re on the right track, Victor. But liberals often DO try to control other peoples’ sex lives when the breakdown of social norms leads to unfortunate results. Hence those “codes” on college campuses for assuring that relationships are consensual: “May I hold your hand?” “May I put my arm around your shoulder”? etc.

And then there’s the idea that popular or “powerful” students can be charged with sexual abuse if a partner decides later that he or she was unduly influenced to have sex by the popularity or power of the non-victim-class student. It’s just a matter of time before the destruction of social conventions for behavior results in more legalistic substitutes.

On the other hand, politicians who espouse the “correct” positions are, as you suggested, typically let off the hook by the press. Because to the Left, embracing the correct ideology is generally far more important that how you lead your life. In the Weiner case, the public nature of Twitter sort of blurs the public/private behavioral divide, too.

I see: You can only be a hypocrite if you ‘preach’ one thing and do another? Great. So, Obama, who is constantly preaching at us about sharing the sacrifice, sharing our wealth — when is he gonna start sending me money instead of grabbing for more of mine? And you don’t think simply pretending to be one thing, yet behaving in a way that is inconsistent with your assumed role somehow NOT hypocrisy?

An honest assessment on the deficits of hypocrisy. Is it worse to say the wrong thing, and do the wrong thing, or to say the right thing and do the wrong? While that portion of the argument succeeds the argument as a whole fails.
That argument would be true if hypocrisy was equivalent to moral failure. Hypocrisy is veiling yourself in a identity that is not your own. This is one of the most complete lies a man can make, and as such people of this nature should not be trusted.
But in the end the question remains why do we associate conservatives with morals, conservative philosophy is no more or less moral then liberalism. Do we call conservative failures hypocritical , and do we call liberal hypocrites failures? There is not one politician that does not tout themselves as a “family man”. They are all hypocrites.

And remember how Bill Clinton, surrounded by beaming feminists, reaffirmed the Violence against Women Act in February 1998, giving the woman’s attorney the right to ask the male defendant all those nosy, pesky, invasive questions about aides and/or interns, and who touched who where–then, in a poetic-justice kind of way, was trapped by Jones’ attorneys’ right to question Bill about who touched who where, etc. Sweet!

Thanks for pointing out the starting point, Zombie. Liberals don’t want you to notice that in order for them to appear “superior” on these issues is not to realize that theirs is an amoral philosophy EXCEPT when it comes to their issues, and then they’re all about morality (see global warming, poverty, national security). But even giving them that theirs is a “morally” grounded philosophy, theirs produce more hypocrites than conservatives; see Al Gore, Barack Obama, Michael Moore, George Soros, and several others.

Look at your diagram and argument, then look at your last two paragraphs: amoral does not equal immoral. At that point you elide. Amoral may be no more appealing to voters than immoral but the two are different. When you write that liberals profess an immoral political philosophy the presumption is that there is standard of political morality against which liberal political philosophy can be judged. Now this may be true, or not, but it’s not the argument you make.

Brilliant article, probably the best illustration and explanation of liberalism I have ever read. Liberalism, while it seems to hate traditional religion rooted in God, it appears to me to be by far the largest faith community in the United States. It’s tenets are religious in nature, yet being rooted in a relativistic subjective amorality it has only one goal, implementation. And like all other totalitarian worldviews leads directly to immorality through its use of intimidation, bullying and ultimately brute force which often leads to genocide, all in the name of its goal. It’s rooted in the “belief” of unachievable Utopian ideas – not in logic and common sense. C.S. Lewis once said “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” This is the case with liberalism, for its ultimate goal is not freedom for mankind, but rather for mankind to submit to their goal.

The notable difference here is that the American public sees morality through the conservative lens and not the liberal. The liberals even concede this point. There would be no talk of forgiveness if no immorality had occurred. And when was the last tearful public presser given over abuse of jet fuel?

You have just, in different words, described Thomas Sowell’s distinction (as laid out in “A conflict of visions”) between the “constrained” vs. “unconstrained” visions of human nature. It actually mostly coincides with one of the two axes of the Pournelle and Zombie political charts.

Sowell also notes that for (the self-image of) those with the unconstrained vision, sincerity is the cardinal virtue, while for those with the constrained vision, it is fidelity.

Actually, hypocrisy is an extremely important virtue, in that it is the foundation of manners. Many years ago, a friend of mine complimented a British friend on “the politeness of the English”; the English friend replied, “Oh, we’re just polite so that we don’t kill each other.”

I recently re-watched the Henry Fonda/John Wayne film Fort Apache, which takes place in a remote Western military outpost. The commanding officer, Henry Fonda, is a bigot and a martinet, who has insulted—on several levels—his Irish sergeant major, the sergeant’s son, and his wife. Yet protocol demands that the commanding officer lead off the noncommissioned officers’ dance with the sergeant major’s wife, and both do so without showing how much they detest each other.

It is hypocrisy which makes society work. Decrying it is not a virtue; it is an argument for rudeness and anarchy.

Actually the reason hypocrisy is used as a counterpoint is because the hypocrite is advocating that others behave a certain way that he doesn’t. That undermines his authority to tell others what to do.

Sure you can. Liberals are hypocrites for calling conservatives hypocrites. After all, if morality is relative, what is wrong with hypocrisy? They make moral judgments while condemning the act of making moral judgments.

BUT many liberals/Democrats embroiled in scandal DO prove themselves to be hypocrites as well – when the scandals are MONETARY, not sexual. Consider Charles Rangel, writing the tax laws he flouts; or Timothy Geithner, running the Treasury that he cheats of taxes. And they STILL get away with it, because in the eyes of the lefty media, other lefties can do no wrong… Thoughts?

Like Chris Bolts above, you are correct — their hypocrisy reeks to high heaven on other issues. But for the purposes of this Weiner-themed post, I wanted to stay tightly focused on sexual/interpersonal morality, and to play directly in their sandbox and show that even using their rules on their casino table, they’ve dealt themselves a losing hand.

Having “dealt themselves a losing hand” assumes a level of morality that has simply been indoctrinated out of far too many among us. LIbEraliSm exists because it’s practitioners have mastered the art of insulating people from the negative consequences of immoral behavior. Add that to their success at convincing most people “you have no right to judge others” despite the fact that those who live conservatively have to foot the bill and sadly, I think they’re right where they want to be. The 8-10% of the population that self-describes as “LIbEral” on BOTH social and fiscal issues is firmly in control of the rest of us. They have the education system (which is the key), the bureacracy, the courts and most of the media. We, on the other hand, have a lot of work to do.

Not even slightly, because that’s judging according to internal logical consistency, not some external moral code that varies by person or political bloc.

Or, in the more popular liberal formulation, dems play the part of worldweary cynic or lovably irredeemable politician [with a heart of gold]. from that point of view, they’re upholding morality while conservatives exploit it. if not for the media holding up their end [liberals think], they would be steamrolled by conservatives who won’t either a. acknowledge their own sins, or b. never had standards in the first place, just invented them to better fleece the minority of the day.

Sexual morality seems to occupy its own category, though. All these questions about whether sexual behavior even has a moral dimension as long as it’s between two consenting adults. I’ve been lurking Daily Kos furiously throughout Weinergate, and I’ve noted that while liberal pols get some exemption on the hypocrisy charge, they admit that marital infidelity is lying and that lying is wrong. (That’s where the “It’s none of our business what he does” defense comes in.)

Liberals certainly claim to be moral — in fact, morally superior. That’s why they’re so generous (with other people’s money) and so eager to fight injustice (not with justice, but with an equal and opposite injustice). But sex is about little more than what people agree to.

I think it’s this splitting-off of sex from morality that, in their own minds, lets liberals off from the hypocrisy charge in these sexual scandals.

And this is why Liberals ARE hypocrites. If their ethos is, “if it feels good, do it,” why marry? Why have children? Why make any promises at all? Why be truthful at all? Why not steal or cheat? Why, in fact, give lip service to reason at all?

This is one of the reasons why I think liberals hate capitalism – they assume that the profit motive is the equivalent of their moral code.

I think you’ve it it right on the head, especially about it being an ultimately losing hand. So long as people feel a bit ashamed of themselves, and don’t want to be overly judgmental in general, they’ll let the petite-fascists get away with it. Conservatives can’t get away with it because they have that additional layer of hypocrisy that is so easily used as a club. At some point disgust overcomes shame–Dems engaging in this kind of thing is almost a ‘dog bites man’ story, and really the only reason Weiner disgraced himself so thoroughly is because he launched his idiotic ‘hacker did it’ defense. If all that had come out was that he’s a creepy cyber sexual harasser, even the pics wouldn’t have been enough to reduce his ‘stature.’ HE made it a ‘man bites dog’ story all by himself, and that’s why it’s bit him.

The problem with letting these kind of stories become ‘dog bites man’ is that at some point people who aren’t paying much attention will come to the realization that they’re supporting a group of un-jailed felons, and their own discomfort at judging others will suddenly reverse. Can’t happen to soon in my opinion, but a lot of people do things they’re ashamed of, and don’t want to judge others too harshly.

For that matter I don’t want to judge too harshly either, but I came to my own realization a long time ago–in High School History of all places. The Democratic Party hasn’t changed a jot. No matter how bad the Alien and Sedition Acts were, they came into being for a reason, and that reason was that the Democratic-Republicans were literally buying votes as people stepped off the boat, and using mobs to interfere with government officials to keep elections from being square. They did that for many years, all the way into Tammany Hall days. Now their methods are more sly, but it’s the same old vote-buying scheme. And when they get caught, they just gin up a mob like they did in Madison. Corrupt elites and mobs, that has been the Dems from the beginning, and every so often they take a serious beating because of it, and pretend to be noble and good for a few years.

I think we’re getting close to another whippin. Anthony Wiener is just one more little pebble presaging a rockslide.

The libs do not openly postulate that morality is obsolete, they imply or lead you to infer that it is, because they are sophisticated enough for nuances and shades of gray, instead of clinging to the bigotted black-and-white razor of the simplets. Then, they go through their familiar motions, and claim moral superiority on the basis of having been unfairly maligned by a bunch of dorks. They have gotten a lot of mileage out of this gambit, which is only an elementary form of bullying: “You are not intelligent enough to appreciate and recognize the infinite subtleties of life!”. Bullying works well enough to have led the first George Bush (41) to explain that he would be a “compassionate conservative”, implicitely conceding the accusation from the left that the Republicans are only discompassionate brutes.

Sooner or later, the right will come to recognize that the only rational way to deal with the bullies is to confront them, squarely. This is what Andrew Breitbart is demonstrating so convincingly. If you are afraid to stand for anything, you will be smashed, even by those who only pretend to be standing for something! Lesson learned, anyone?

I have never seen liberal campaign material that didn’t talk about healthy families. Not once.

Granted, their idea of a healthy family is one that is receiving every possible government service, but they all emphasize the idea of the healthy, happy, nuclear family.

So, when caught in a sex scandal, how are they not hypocrites? I know I’m skipping a key element here – the underlying hedonism defense – but liberals, as much as conservatives, run on a family values platform. Or “safe, legal and rare” would not have been such a selling point for Bill Clinton and his successors, I think.

Which short-circuits the whole “hypocrisy” defense, and fast.

If Weiner were only living with someone, would that make his quasi, virtual, cyber adultery less offensive? Or is his marriage, of recent vintage, a shining example of screaming hypocrisy? He did, after all, promise (in front of a serial adulterer) to forsake all others. So, which is the hypocritical act – his marriage vows, or his quasi-adultery?

That’s right … Liberals have been at war with the nuclear family for some time now. They obtusely attack it via the whole notion of ‘tolerance’; so we are bombarded through the media about virtues of single mothers or two fathers etc… However, many libs are open and blunt about simply destroying the nuclear family.

Not in their campaign material. I grant the code-word “diverse”, though.

A word that covers a multitude of sins, “diverse”. It can mean poor, it can mean multi-ethnic, it can mean less than traditional, but the one thing it really means is, “I’m a weasel and won’t say what I mean.”

Everyone understands that Democrats have to “say the words” about loving freedom, patriotism, the Constitution and family values. But everyone also understands that they don’t really mean it, so they aren’t held accountable for living up to it. Obama’s presidency is a crushing avalanche of evidence attesting to this principle.

Dianna, what you’re getting caught up in is the liberal/Alinsky pattern of hijacking the language. What a liberal mans by “healthy family” has nothing to do with a family’s structure or its moral health or religious convictions or its political and economic freedom. It’s just their language for supporting their ever increasing control of citizens via social engineering. It allows them to pretend shock that a conservative would be against “healthy families” when what the conservative is against is fascism. Government controlling absolutely what a family s/b permitted to eat or how a family’s children s/b educated/indoctrinated is their idea of supporting “healthy families”. Similarly they have for years been trying to re-define “morality” itself. Simply watch the context of where the word is applied by liberals and you’ll see that how you treat a vow to your spouse is nobody’s business but simply being skeptical of global warming is immoral.

I might respectfully suggest that more important than moral/amoral in your starting point is honesty. If he is not a hypocrite then he must up front have stood by the position that he was a liar and his word could not be trusted. The lies and accusations that others had fabricated the pictures and sent them are dishonest and dishonorable regardless of ones sexual attitudes. Are these Democrat defenders admitting the Democrats are a party of liars?

Hypocrisy becomes the highest sin when the “self” is treated as god. There are no other standards more important than our self proclamations. It is ultimately a self corrosive stance to take, treating morality as nothing more than strained consistency with public statements. Ya know that Hitler guy might not have been too kind, but at least he wasn’t a hypocrite (that’s where the hypocrisy standards ends up with).

And from where does this conservative “morality” emanate, may I ask? Why, from Judeo-Christian “religious tradition” you might answer. But that “tradition” has been turned inside-out in the past 50 years. The problem of conservatives is, perhaps, that they “profess” to be “moral” in a traditional sense while Dems do not. When conservatives transgress and then lie about it, that makes them hypocrites as well as liars, doesn’t it?

When you say “they ‘profess’ to be ‘moral’ in a traditional sense while Dems do not,” that’s exactly the thrust of my argument — the Dems don’t even claim to be moral — thus, they define themselves as amoral.

But then you take it one step further and say — even the conservatives can’t claim to be moral, because in the last 50 years all moral standards have been destroyed, and no one is moral in the old-fashioned sense any more — thus the conservatives are lying too.

But I ask you: Who destroyed the morals over the last 50 years? Why, the liberals even brag about doing so; they did it.

So your argument is the equivalent of tearing off a nun’s habit and while she stands there in shock covering her private parts with her hands, you mock her and say “Look at you — you claim to be modest, but you’re standing there naked! You’re both a liar and a hypocrite!”

Your initial presentation of logic in your analysis of the absence of morality in the lefts hipocracy accusation is only exceeded by your sharp retort to Romatrast.

A baseball analogy is in order, given the season. Romatrast threw you a batting practice fastball. You got the fattest part of your Louisville Slugger on it; the ball has still not come down.

Thanks for your tight analysis. You have shed light on yet another reason why leftists are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. They are lousy at discerning human nature, terrible at understanding economics, and, as you rigorously point out, adrift when it comes to being able to identify right from wrong. As collapse occurs, people will increasingly identify the lefts fingerprints in the creation of chaos through their antihumanism and illogic. The Marxists are going to be permanently discredited shortly, thanks to thinkers such as your self.

The hypocrisy defense is one of the most annoying Prog/Lib last-stands.

The further proof that they are indeed hypocrites is the fact that they lie about having committed the act. A true amoral would look you in the face upon discovery and say; “so what?” No need to hide something you are proud of, right?

remember, the favorite liberal trick is projection – to put their own faults on others. if they complain of hypocrisy in others, it is because they are monsterous hypocrites themselves.

as you point out, their hypocrisy is that they have any standing to discuss hypocrisy. their basic leadership image is the alpha male who has no need to apologize for anything, and their idea of freedom for citizens is the freedom to be f’d by the alphas – sexual, social, intellectual, financial.

their complaint about hypocrisy is that principles are involved. to say that conservatives are hypocrites for trying, is like saying laws against bank robbery are pointless and should be repealed, since banks are still being robbed in spite of the laws.

Close but nice try. Conservatism: an ideology that (professes) to be based on moral ideas.
Clearly practical experience requires the qualifier. You are correct honesty is always the best policy to feigned piety and hypocritical high-mindedness.

I have submitted your comment for inclusion in the Museum of Projection.

You presume that since liberals are all morally corrupt, then all conservatives must be as well; that all piety is “feigned” piety, that all high-mindedness is “hypocritical” high-mindedness. You can’t even visualize a scenario in which there is a truly righteous or good person who maintains moral rectitude, or another who at least tries with all sincerity to maintain moral rectitude, successful or not.

No: You think, “We liberals are skunks; so everyone is a skunk; and anyone who pretends otherwise is both a skunk and a hypocrite — which is worse than just being a skunk!”

That, my friend, is called projection.

I’m reminded of a true incident that happened to me lo these many years ago. I was in a room with a group of friends, all young far-left liberals (as was I at the time). One woman burst into tears and sought consolation for an emotional crisis she was experiencing. Turns out she was having an affair with a married man, and the guy promised her the world. But when push came to shove, he dumped her and kept his wife, breaking his promise to his young mistress to run off together.

Our friends all crowded around and consoled her with the words, which still echo in my ears: “We’ve all been there.” Everyone nodded and cooed in agreement: Ah yes, we’ve all been there, we’ve all screwed married people and thought in our naivité that we could lure them away from their spouses. That bastard! That was the consoling message. And the weeping woman felt consoled.

Me? I felt sick to my stomach. “We’ve” all been there? All of you? You’re all that amoral? My supposed friends? Not me! I could never do such a thing! But I kept my thoughts to myself.

Now, much later, I realize that this circle of consolation is liberal projection in a nutshell: The presumption that everyone is equally amoral or immoral. And as soon as someone claims to not be immoral (read: conservative), the sneering begins: Oh yeah? You’re lying. We’ll find it; we’ll find your failing. Just you wait!

I see your point, and agree, but there are many people who would like to be pious and righteous, but fall short of the mark. In this case, their flaw is not hypocrisy, but moral weakness, which is glossed over by leftists.

The fact that we try to live up to our moral standards and fail due to a weakness in resisting a temptation is twisted into hypocrisy by the left and used to hammer us.

As an agnostic libertarian, I believe this is a salient point that the liberals don’t get. I respect my Christian friends for attempting to live up to their moral code. But they would be the first to admit that they aren’t always successful. People are not perfect. That is inherent in the Christian moral philosophy. So the argument that someone is hypocritical because they exhibit moral weakness means they don’t understand Christianity.

Again, I toyed with Christianity in my youth, but gave it up. So I understand their moral code perhaps better than the amoral liberals of the world, despite the fact that I don’t adhere to a Christian moral code myself.

Makes perfect sense.And it demonstrates the appeal of social system slugs to vote liberal.They have a bit of amorality going on with reproducing for increased funds,lack of ambition to find employment and being flag waving democratic voters while slurping at the vein of our bleeding financial wounds.

I guess Mrs.Weiner doesn’t ascribe to the Hillary Clinton school of he is innocent of the sin of fornication and she ain’t no Tammy Wynette.

Both parties play duck,weave,deny,minimize,point fingers and distract but liberals fall from low heights of expectations and hope to bounce,conservatives can barely hope to survive the fall from the great height of grace.

Both discount the fact that they lose the public’s trust because of the deceptions and maltreatment of their families,not because they had sex.

Why do the Progs use the hypocrisy argument? It’s in the *instructions.* Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals #4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

I’ll just copy what I wrote at Gateway Pundit (after linking you, natch) about this:

“And if you think about it — this argument can also be applied perfectly to the theological-moral conflict between Islam and Christianity/Judaism, or between ANY other “non-judgmental” religion and Christianity/Judaism. Christians at least, are supposed to TRY to be good, sometimes failing. Muslims are supposed to TRY to kill, steal, lie, and destroy — when they do so, they are in line with Mohammad’s teachings and his life and actions. Wicca and new-age religions pride themselves on the amoral, non-judgmental aspects of their beliefs — making hypocrisy impossible…..but so what? As Zombie points out, the hypocrisy argument is secondary on the scale of things to give a s&&t about here. The complete amorality or immorality of these folks is more detestable and wrong than the fact that they are logically incapable of the (sin) of hypocrisy.”

Well-crafted sophistry; sort of reminiscent of the implications of the answer to the question: Which is more scary – when the President explains a policy, he believes what he says OR when the President explains a policy, he doesn’t believe what he says?

Agreed. The left, while claiming to be amoral and nonjudgemental all these years, actually has been — as they like to call it so much when Christians even so much as TALK ABOUT their beliefs within their sensitive earshot — “shoving their morality down our throats”. Every other commercial on TV since the 70s has had the message “Be more moral by doing THIS!” Whether it’s their quasi-Mosaic dietary code (Green, Fair-Trade, Free-Trade, Organic… Hippy Kosher, basically), or their “moral” admonishments to buy an Apple computer (because Bill Gates is rich, of course, and Apple is apparently higher on the moral scale for “Greenness” or their more overt corporate political views, or simply because Microsoft is the “oppressor” of the “underdog” Apple), or their every other “moral” Commandment — that we hold the Correct views on everything, or we are somehow judged immoral and unclean.

It’s why I don’t own a TV anymore. Every other commercial is some super-wealthy Hollywood star telling me to “be a better person” by changing my lightbulbs. Nearly every TV show is packed to the gills with Progressive philosophical preaching, and I grew sick of it nearly ten years ago. If I want preaching I’ll go to church.

Actually, Liberals DO have a moral code. It only has one rule: Never, ever, EVER say or do ANYTHING that might remind somebody else of their fundamental amorality. Because that might make them feel bad, and making a Liberal feel bad is the only real evil.

There are many similairitties between the behavior of Mark Foley and Anthony Weiner except that Foley was less explicit and did not include audio-visual aids. People should ask themselves how and why their reactions to what the two men did differed. If there were a difference, was it because Foley was a Republican, gay or a gay Republican?

Part B of this scheme is the Ted Kennedy defense: yeah, he may be a scoundrel (but not a hypocrite!) but he’s willing to vote to send boatloads of your money down various ratholes “for the children” so we gotta give him a pass. Expect to see this from the Weiner if he can find the appropriate amounts of money and ratholes in his past record.

You’ve described the condition perfectly. However it isn’t political suicide for them, it’s the only way for them to survive. As we continue our slide away from personal morality, the appeal of a political party (and therefore government) that won’t judge us only grows.

The siren song of “Vote for me and you will not be judged” is too strong for most to resist.

What is a hypocrite? Someone who presents himself as being better than he is. A hypocrite makes an attempt to deceive others about his real nature and real actions, to appear more virtuous than he actually is. Congressman Weiner showed himself to be a hypocrite. He presented himself as a virtuous person who was the victim of a hacker, when the truth of it was that he had done what he previously claimed he had not done.

So if Democrats claim that at least they are not hypocrites, then the reply is: what about Congressman Weiner?

Within the parameters of this “Hypocrisy Defense”…Which do you think the general public prefers: An ideology that at least tries to champion a moral code, but whose adherents sometimes fail to live up to it; or an ideology that by its own definition is inherently immoral and whose adherents don’t even have a moral code to violate?

There’s a saying wrt this that I heard once long ago and haven’t heard it since:

“I’d rather be accused of not practicing what I preach than preaching what I practice.”

One of the prominent narcissistic traits of Progressives is their sense of being entitled “The rules don’t apply to ME.” It extends past sex, to not paying taxes, buying off conservation with carbon indulgences, cronyism in business-government interactions. etc.

An additional point on ‘consensuality’: Did Weiner’s wife consent in his sexting? (Some of it before, some of it after their wedding.) If not (and it seems unlikely, from Weiner’s behavior if nothing else), then he is indeed a hypocrite if only because he promised his wife a standard of behavior and fidelity he did not live up to.

Uh huh, now please do a short treatise on Democrats’/Liberals’ Attitude toward Promises.

How can you be a hypocrite when you and all your friends know that “promises” are just one more way to get what you want? All that’s left is finding a way to blame others (usually Republicans) when the promises “can’t” be kept.

Basically proggies are saying that since they are immoral and admit it they should be given a free ride when caught doing innappropriate things. The fact that they’ll play the “we’re scum so it’s OK” card is a big indicator that their ideology is sick.

You should add a final box for the liberal who has no moral foundation, that says, thus true hypocrite when he condemns others. Which is what all liberals do when they do not allow freedom, but rather force others to do what they want in the name of: the children, the environment, just one life saved, etc

Hypocrisy is a minor crime. Hypocrites get box seats looking down on the first circle of hell. As a boomer and ex-hippie, ex-lefty, I realized that hypocrisy was the engine that drove the counterculture to reject “The Greatest Generation”. Parents go to church?…yeah, but they sin five days a week. America founded on liberty?…Yeah, but what about slavery and Jim Crow? Saved the world for democracy?…Yeah, just so we can bathe in crass consumerism. Don’t believe in abortion?…then how can you support capital punishment? The counterculture types became hypocrite-seeking missiles. It’s their only parlor trick. I giggle when I hear Bill Maher point out that some professed Christian didn’t behave like Jesus on some particular day, and then gloat as if he scored some tremendous intellectual victory.

Liberals are still hypocrites-the msm chooses to ignore it. Weiner sponsored a bill to protect kids from sexual predators and another to stop sexual harrassment of students. This is hypocrisy. Bill Clinton had a demeaning sexual relationship with a woman who worked directly under him in the professional chain of command. This is unforgivable in the private sector or when committed by conservatives. Instead a prominent MSM female reporter said she would have given him oral sex as thanks for all he has done for feminism.

Race is another example. If a conservative is caught making an intemperate remark, he needs to be sanctioned as he is now a confirmed racist. However if a liberal (Jesse Jackson, Harry Reid) makes an intemperate racial remark they are forgiven because liberals “know” they aren’t actually racist. Shouldn’t the argument instead be that Jackson/Reid must be ousted for their hypocrisy?

Of course, they aren’t, because the media is so spectacularly biased and will do anything to support the left.

I’m sorry, but I need to disagree with the fundamental gloating going on here. To project onto “liberals” amorality is to misunderstand much of their position. I don’t think that the issue here is about private hypocrisy – assuming standard marriage vows, he clearly broke his word to his wife. This is a serious private matter to him, but only a real public scandal if you assume that politicians are otherwise complete paragons of honesty.

The big problem is that a lot of conservatives spend time trying to convince people that they are “holier than thou” when it comes to sex, but fall down. Larry Craig is a good example. The issue wasn’t that he was seeking extramarital sex, but that he was seeking gay sex while actively being hostile to gay issues. Eliot Spitzer (D) suffered the same problem, not because he was engaging in extra-marital sex, but because he made a name for himself as a crime-fighter who specialized in cracking down on prostitution while paying big bucks to spend time with them.

Any time a politician is caught having an affair it will be news. For most, it will be a few days of really uncomfortable coverage until the next shark attack or natural disaster occurs. What most people get upset about is that these politicians are demanding others to live by rules that they themselves are unwilling to live by. This is the real hypocrisy involved. That is the core issue here in terms of news coverage appeal, not which party is involved.

Hypocrisy is not sincerely believing something and failing to live up to it: a gay politician might sincerely believe his inclinations to be wrong, strive not to indulge them, and fail. A pol might sincerely believe that prostitution is a public pestilence, but not be upright enough to heed his own principles some nights. I’m not saying that necessarily describes Craig or Spitzer, but such scenarios are possible.

Hypocrisy is harder to diagnose from the outside: it’s not even BELIEVING the principles that you preach. It’s a public figure preaching [whatever] because it gets votes, makes him look good, or keeps the rubes in line, but feeling free to violate it on his own time. Neither Republican nor Democrat examples are hard to find.

I don’t think the analogy really holds, as the set of beliefs in the moral/amoral slot would have to be the same set, affirmed by the one and denied by the other.

In fact, the liberal accuses the conservative of holding incorrect beliefs as to the nature of the family, marriage, patriotism, etc. Their real argument is that personal failings of the Weiner kind are not relevant questions of character as they do not touch public life or policy, so transgression isn’t really hypocrisy—only the lying is hypocritical. The conservatives, OTOH, believe that these personal failings demonstrate both character defects and transgression of announced principles—both the transgression and the lying are hypocritical.

Please keep in mind that I am only saying that the analogy has a logical flaw, not that the liberal position is correct.

The fact that Weiner acknowledged some shame over what he did indicates that he at least thinks that he is *expected* to feel shame. I have no doubt that he doesn’t. He feels more shame about being caught. But then the appeal of this sort of behavior is precisely because it is proscribed. Again, as someone earlier said, if he wasn’t a hypocrite, he would have brazenly admitted what he did, without admitting shame. But he lied about it. And the lie indicates that there was some sense of “wrongness” in what he did.

Thus, he is a hypocrite. But then, we all are. We all have principles that we violate from time to time. It’s human nature. The real issue here isn’t that he is or isn’t a hypocrite, but that he violated his promises to his wife, put himself in a position to be blackmailed, abused the authority entrusted to him by the voters of New York, and viciously and falsely accused others of inventing this story to harm him. Whether or not you think he is a hypocrite is the least of his moral failings at this point.

The D.C.’s ‘poor’ citizenry, who have been given FAR MORE government ‘fairness’ programs (think ‘taxpayer money’) since 65′s Civil Rights Act than the rest of the nation time-wise, are overwhelmingly Democrat/Illiberal and provided the tools, the equipment, the encouragement, the empathy, the school provided meals, government work/lowered hiring practices for employment, volunteers rebuilding homes and/or neighborhoods, child/gang deterrence advocates, lowered drug charges, ad infinitum. Result?

Highest HIV cases per capita nationwide. 93% of the city’s crack related incarcerated are sadly Black, dreadful literacy, math scores with their public schools (whereas all but one D.C. Council person sends their child to a private school, due to his already living in a nice section of town, yet they all tout to send YOUR child to the gang warfare-like public school), single parent households/barrios/ghettos everywhere, crime ridden, skyrocketing homeless and unemployed, tens of thousands of the most mundane government jobs ‘created’ when in essence is ANOTHER private sector job removed, further straining businesses and their employee’s with higher taxes.

Though the Illiberal will NEVER say publicly to those benefiting most but giving the very least, ‘Enough’s enough’ and encourage self reliance, blame on one’s self for their failings, etc.,

The issue of “hypocrisy” is nowhere more visible than when a sex scandal involves homosexual behavior. When a conservative figure—a legislator or a pastor—has been caught out engaging in homosexual conduct, the Left has chortled with glee, contrasting the hapless subject of the scandal’s behavior with his “anti-gay” political position.

In doing this, the Left demonstrates how very differently it views the world. The Left views “homosexuality” as a status, whereas conservatives for the most part view homosexual behavior as a matter of moral choice. The Torah does not condemn “homosexuality,” a concept which did not exist until relatively recently (i.e., about 150 years ago); it condemns homosexual behavior.

To the person with a moral view of human behavior, it is perfectly consistent for someone to condemn homosexual behavior while struggling against the temptation to engage in it—even if that person occasionally loses the struggle. To the person with an amoral view of human behavior, such a moral struggle has no validity; the person’s refusal to submit to his or her “nature” is the only issue.

You’re right Zombie, but have forgotten one element of the leftist belief system.

“Liberals LOVE to live an amoral life, that’s why they’re liberals”.

Do liberals care if they’re called amoral or hypocritical? No.

It’s how liberals “win” arguments. Because they don’t care about anything, have no morals or consistent beliefs, whatever you throw at them, they’ll just ignore it. They can ignore it because they love living the life of the liar, cheat and amoral criminal.

Why do you think liberals want to give the vote to felons, reduce penalties against crime, legalize drugs, favor pornography and fight so hard for abortion? Chaos and death is their goal. Once you’ve accepted that, who cares about morals or hypocrisy? They don’t.

I’m not sure that I follow you so readily. The modern liberal-left has a very defined moral code, explicit even. In matters sexual/interpersonal, it is broadly based on the situational ethics so prevalent in western Europe: All personal sexual matters are between you and the other “partner” and thus, by default, there is no societal interest in it whatsoever. You define your own morality that way. I ask you this Z: How many feminists did you know who would have ordinarily taken to barricades over Clinton’s philandering as a Governor or POTUS simply shrugged and said, “If Hilary doesn’t have a problem, then I don’t.” I bet it was a few.

Which is to say, the liberal-left moral code is politics and power and it is absolute. Weiner’s failings as a legislator and man have no real bearing because he is still elected and serving and still a ready source of liberal votes. Were he to question AGW or abortion, then he would be rejected forthright, like a common bacteria.

This is all nihilistic and has some truly appalling antecedents. But that it is amoral is perhaps imprecise. It is a rejection of traditional moral standards for a greater political expediency.

Actually – though of course Zombie’s excellent point remains – Weiner is a hypocrite even in the “Republicans are hypocrites,” “do as I say not as I do” sense since he sponsored legislation aimed at cracking down on online sexual predators.

There is an additional corallary to this. If you are a depraved sex maniac, with no personal moral compass, and you wish to get into politics, you had better run as a dem, because if you are caught as a repub, you are toast, but if you are caught as a dem, you are OK.

Actually it isn’t even confined to sex, look at Charlie Wrangel. The chair of the house ways and means committee, who writes our tax laws, is a tax cheat, and still there.

The real dem position is, we beleive in nothing, and have no standards, except winning, and having the proper leftist positions, so if you are a dem you can get away with anything, except deviation from correct idealogy. Not levying moral standards on others is one thing, and reasonable, but not levying any moral standards on THEMSELVES, and their own members, is an invitation to depravity.

The other thing this is doing is forcing every voter to automatically assume any dem is either a crook or sex maniac, because any party that is incapable of purging its bad apples, will soon be filled with nothing BUT bad apples.

Pretty late to the party on this one, Zombie. I have known for my entire adult life (currently age 51, considered myself an adult at age 16) that liberals–and most particularly, those who claim the title of “Democrat”–are basically at best amoral slobs, at worst completely and abjectly immoral beasts.

The only way any dem can run for office, and not be a hipocrite, is if they publically announce, before their elections, which behaviors they have the right to personally engage in, without consequence. Only if they are caught at a hehavior they publically stated was not a personal standard to be observed, for THEM, can they legidimately claim not to be a hipocrite. Weiner was presumed to be a personally moral man, and never stated he was not, or that such questions were out of bounds for him, so in actuality he is a hipocrite.

It would be interesting to see a survey of liberal men and women, reported by gender, on the issue of whether they think it would be acceptable for their boyfriend/husband to engage in sexting during their engagement and the first year after the wedding. I suspect the men might have a majority approval rating, but I find it hard to believe even 10% of the women would approve.

Of course its not really about the hypocrisy. Leftist hypocrisy is never challenged. Liberals demand higher and higher taxes from everyone, yet remember how many of Obama’s cabinet nominees were caught not paying any taxes at all? Taxes are for the little people? Doesn’t that seem far more hypocritical than saying you should be moral and having a moral failing or two?

Liberals love to push global warming alarmism and demand all sorts of crazy sacrifices of the little people while they fly around in private jets and live in giant mansions. Somehow their complete failure to live up to their demands of other people doesn’t make the liberals of the world demand we abandon even trying to face global warming.

That one really sticks with me. Congressman X says its good for society to be faithful to your spouse. It obviously is. He is caught cheating. Liberals say the very idea of being faithful to spouses should be abandoned.

Congressman X says you should sacrifice all worldly possessions to Save Gaia. He is caught flying in a private jet at taxpayer expense and living in a mansion larger than Rush Limbaugh’s. Liberals shrug and say this has no bearing on Saving Gaia.

Zombie, with respect, your logic is flawed. You assume that both parties have the same goals.

“Within the parameters of this “Hypocrisy Defense”…Which do you think the general public prefers: An ideology that at least tries to champion a moral code, but whose adherents sometimes fail to live up to it; or an ideology that by its own definition is inherently immoral and whose adherents don’t even have a moral code to violate?”

In your example of the man who falls off the wagon vs. the man who is a stone cold alcoholic, the analogy breaks down. For while Conservatives find drinking to excess wrong, Democrats DO NOT. It would be the same with drugs, or sex.

Democrats do have a morality and a code – it is just not one that Republicans can intuitively relate to. What you have to do is to call them on their stated words/positions. What you’re doing here is trying to hold them to a moral standard that they’ve never held.

It works to reassure the Conservatives that your position is the correct one, and that the Liberals really are still morally bankrupt, but it won’t have any traction with the Liberals. To get Liberals, you have to hoist them on the petard of their own words and professed morals (such as they are), not on how they compare with Conservatives.

Yes, I understand that liberals do indeed have their own separate moral code; I was simply pointing out that, when they declare themselves to be immune from hypocrisy, the implication is that they have no standards that they could ever violate, and thus have no moral code as defined by themselves. But at a different time If you asked a liberal if liberalism was based on morality, they’d say yes; but if you then called them hypocrites for failing to live up to that morality, they’d get very angry. So instead they’d then declare themselves immune from accusations of hypocrisy, but the “side effect” of that is also declaring themselves to be without a moral code.

All I’m saying is that they think this is some kind of clever shell game — whichever shell we the marks pick, that one’s always empty. But if you take a step back (as we are doing here in this thread), you can see it is indeed a shell game.

It seems to me that the Dem/Progressives all have an unwarranted sense of superiority. Thus, they know what is best for everybody. Not only that, they want to impose their sense of what is best ON everybody else. Maybe they do posses a set of moral principles, but like their view of the Constitution, it is “living;” the moral principles adapt to whatever the current situation calls for.

Thus, we have the nanny state (call it central planning), and the inclination to do ANYTHING to achieve desired goals.

You get near it at the end, Zombie, but this is important to stress: The very definition of hypocrisy DOES NOT INCLUDE falling short of your ideals nor even struggling with your demons and falling short. Hypocrisy only applies when the falling short is papered over with facile, knowing or posturing behavior.

This is not always helpful… when the televangelist cries after getting caught with a prostitute, are those tears of remorse or tears of getting caught? Still, when this filter is applied, much of what you are labeling conservative hypocrisy (for purposes of illustration) becomes mere human frailty. And liberal amorality dissolves as a factor, because the essence of hypocrisy is holding more than one standard, whatever the moral content.

Weiner clearly qualifies as a hypocrite and not solely for this Tweeter escapade–even on such low-morality issues as parking tickets. Bill Clinton, OTOH, in the highly amoral Lewinski affair, not so much, as he holds himself and others to the same low standards apparently and even admired similar behavior in Kennedy. His crime was abuse of and demeaning his office, not to mention perjuring himself, additional liberal tendencies.

“The reason any conservative’s failing is always major news is that it allows liberals to engage in their very favorite taunt: Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy is the only sin that really inflames them. Inasmuch as liberals have no morals, they can sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards that liberals simply renounce. It’s an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites.”

Coulter has it wrong. Hypocrisy is about operating situationally from different standards. Liberals who–Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi come to mind–make the occasional show of their Christian church-going ways or Bible familiarity are very much hypocrites.

I think it’s over-analyzing the argument to even mention “liberal” or “conservative.”

They don’t care if a Democrat does it because he’s on their side. That’s pretty much the long-and-short of it. The “hypocrite” thing is a bit of rationalization they’ve developed to codify their, well, hypocrisy.

The liberals are taking a HUGE gamble that a majority of Americans will throw in their lot with the party of immorality.

Actually, it’s a pretty safe bet. Here is just a partial list to show why:

William Jefferson Clinton (rape) – elected and re-elected President. Arguably still the Democrat Party’s most popular pol.

Ted Kennedy (murder) – elected and re-elected to the Senate.

Robert Byrd (KKK) – elected and re-elected to the Senate.

Barney Frank (corruption) – elected and re-elected to the House. Got only a slap on the wrist from the Ethics Committee.

Maxine Watters (corruption) – elected and re-elected to the House. The Ethics Committee has done zippo investigating her: the shrieks of “Racism!” worked wonders.

In short, if a Democrat decides to brazen it out (as Weiner is doing), he or she can look forward to a long political career. Mayor of NYC, Senator, Governor – all are easily within his reach.

In fact: how does “President Weiner” grab you? Don’t laugh: if it can be shown that he sexually assaulted a women he would be a shoo-in for the White House. Never underestimate the bone-headed stupidity of the American voter!

For many on the left, hypocrisy is the greatest of offenses. To be a hypocrite is to be proven illegitimate – a fraud. This is one of the reasons why you find so many people old enough to know better, still clinging to the left-wing ideas of their youth. To let go of these childish views and would render them hypocrites (at least in their own minds). It also explains the hostility toward apostates from the left such as David Horowitz, or more recently, David Mamet.

Conservatives, on the other hand, realize that there are far worse things than being a hypocrite – such as being wrong, for example. In fact sometimes the only way to be right is to exhibit a degree of hypocrisy. It’s called learning from your mistakes. The smoker who tells his children not to smoke is a perfect example. This is why many liberal parents who may have experimented with drugs when they were young agonize over telling their own kids to stay away from drugs.It would make them a hypocrite, and hypocrisy is even worse than drug use in the liberal hierarchy of sins.

The narcissistic fear of being seen as a hypocrite actually leaves some people in a permanent state of arrested development.

Is that a misuse of the word hypocrite? A hypocrite would tell someone to do something he would not do. If you regard something as wrong after you’ve done it and don’t do it anymore, you wouldn’t be a hypocrite anymore. That’s why I think Liberals are fundamentally wrong when they use the word at times. Mistakes can be fixed. You would still tell someone to do the right thing. Besides, adults would tell their children to not do something until they are old enough. And even then, not everything they do is right or suitable.

“You know, when I was a young man, hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It was all because of moral relativism. You see, in that sort of climate, you are not allowed to criticise others — after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism?…
“Now, this led to a good deal of general frustration, for people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others’ shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all the vices. For, you see, if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour — you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another. Virtually all the political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy.

“You wouldn’t believe the things they said about the original Victorians. Calling someone a Victorian in those days was almost like calling them a fascist or a Nazi….

“Because they were hypocrites… the Victorians were despised in the late Twentieth Century. Many of the persons who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefarious conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves — they took no moral stances and lived by none.”

“So they were morally superior to the Victorians — ” Major Napier said, still a bit snowed under.

“– even though — in fact, because — they had no morals at all.”

“We take a somewhat different view of hypocrisy,” Finkle-McGraw continued. “In the late Twentieth Century Weltanschaaung, a hypocrite was someone who espoused high moral views as part of a planned campaign of deception — he never held these beliefs sincerely and routinely violated them in privacy. Of course. most hypocrites are not like that. Most of the time it’s a spirit-is willing, flesh-is-weak sort of thing.”

“That we occasionally violate our own moral code,” Major Napier said, working it through, “does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.”

“Of course not,” Finkle-McGraw said. “It’s perfectly obvious, really. No one ever said it was easy to hew to a strict code of conduct. Really, the difficulties involved — the missteps we make along the way — are what make it interesting. The internal, and eternal, struggle between our base impulses and the rigorous demands of our own moral system is quintessentially human. It is how we conduct ourselves in that struggle that determines how we may in time be judged by a higher power.”

Ahhh…Porretto – you are too fast on the draw, my friend! Reading this post made that same “Diamond Age” conversation spring to my mind. I was about to write just that, until I first thought it prudent to see if someone else had already done so. Indeed, you did.

I like your logic diagrams, Zombie.
They seem to work, and prove themselves, when worked backwards. This is the same as proving a mathematical equation.
BUT, then again, LOGIC is antithetical to Democrat/Liberal ideology. If there’s no visceral component, it’s discarded as useless by the Lib’s.

All across the internet over the last few hours, liberal commenters and bloggers have fallen back on one of their most trusted logical arguments in situations like this in which a Democrat is caught in a sex scandal: “At least he’s not a hypocrite.”

Putting aside the fact that actually being an objective hypocrite as judged by one’s ostensibly “adult” acts is and has been instead a staple of the dem. Progressives’ defense of their acts -i.e., by obdurately asserting the alleged validity of “the double standard” as a not very well concealed infantile subtext for their perseverating mantras in almost all areas, it’s no surprise that the multiple Progressive ‘usefuls’ have also missed the fact of Weiner’s manifestly infantile, risky, and self-destructive nature as well as his total lack of credibility, as iconic of the whole of dem. “Progressivism’s” own infantile nature, and as relevant to the validity of their supposed “defenses” of Progressivism and its leaders.

But who ever expects infants to be self-reflective and rational in the first place – much less, rational enough to recognize that if you don’t have values to begin with, then by virtue of your effective nature you simply can’t even be either “a hypocrite” or “not a hypocrite”? You are still only an Infant.

A liberal friend recently posted that when one got down to the very basics, the difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals believe that “human nature is ultimately good” … http://bit.ly/joZxyM

Going with this theory, with which I do not totally agree, my response is then, “OK, define ‘GOOD’”

The answer to that is, of course, whatever feels good, or looks good, or tastes good … to that particular individual at that moment in time. Subject to change on a whim. The opinions (and rights!) of others are irrelevant.

So, if, to Weiner, sending pictures of himself to a young lady, not his wife, was a good thing at the moment … well then, it’s all good!

In contrast, soliciting interludes with male strangers is bad – according to a conservative’s moral code, therefore it IS bad.

Someone clean up those comparisons and make them make better sense. You know what I am trying to say there …

A liberal friend recently posted that when one got down to the very basics, the difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals believe that “human nature is ultimately good” … http://bit.ly/joZxyM

Going with this theory, with which I do not totally agree, my response is then, “OK, define ‘GOOD’”

The answer to that is, of course, whatever feels good, or looks good, or tastes good … to that particular individual at that moment in time. Subject to change on a whim. The opinions (and rights!) of others are irrelevant.

You’ve already covered it, but try to have them define, then, what is “not good”. In other words, if, according to their subjective, haha, ‘standard’, “everything is good”, then there is no such thing as “not good”. In which case they are saying exactly nothing about the real world as it exists. They are only trying to redefine words.

So ask them why they bother to even speak about the real world. And, good luck with that!

I think hypocrisy is frequently confused with weakness. Professing to believe in some ideal or other but failing to live up to it is weakness. Nobody can live up to the highest standards all the time. By that definition of hypocrisy, everyone is a hypocrite. True hypocrisy is when you try to hold others to a standard that you don’t hold yourself to. This is almost the essence of Alinsky’s rule that you hold the other side accountable to their own professed rules. That means that Alinsky’s rules are founded on hypocrisy. So, leftists are hypocrites of the worst kind.

A conservative officeholder who espouses a certain standard, e.g. fidelity to his spouse, and then falls short will usually resign. That’s called taking responsibility. Yesterday we saw the spectacle of Anthony Weiner taking full responsibiity by not resigning.

Thank you. You hit on an important distinction. Some people espouse morals and fail to uphold them because of human weakness. Other people espouse morals and have no intention of upholding them at all. I’m just wondering how we can tell the difference.

To a political enemy, motives never matter and human nature doesn’t enter into it. He said one thing & did the opposite, therefore he’s a hypocrite case closed. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Whether they suffer from weakness or hypocrisy, it may be less trouble just to get rid of all of them.

I think, Bugs, that you’ll know by what they do when caught. The person who fell short due to weakness will take real responsibility and resign. Then you have people like Weiner who will say the words but not really accept responsibility as evidenced by the fact that he did not resign. He wants it both ways, “accepting” responsibility without the true consequences of accepting it. There is the tru hypocrite.

Too complicated by far. The fact is, liberals can be as hypocritical as anyone else. It’s their self-perception that is wrong. For example, liberals regard themselves as impeccably pro-feminist and pro-gay, except when they have to confront rampant misogyny and homophobia throughout practically the entire Third World, particularly within Muslim societies. Liberals could care less about the welfare of CIA agents, except for the Valerie Plame saga which presented an opportunity to go after Karl Rove and the Bush administration. The Dick Cheney death squads somehow morphed into Obama’s heroic Seals. Same people. Race in crime matters only when the victims are black and the perpetrators white, even if no crime was committed. See Duke,rape,NY Times, nonsense,etc. Darfur is, like, whatever. Palestinians are another matter entirely. Ian Smith was the leader of racist Rhodesia. Mugabe is a black statesman. Apparently black Africans prefer being killed by other blacks.

Dream on Zombie. This has been going on for decades, most notably with Bill Clinton’s temporary fall from grace when he had a sex act performed on him by a young intern in, of all places, the Oval Office, probably more than once. The Democratic President of the United States for crying out loud! What did all that ignominy cause him as opposed to what did it do to many, especially women, who were intimately involved with him when he was the Governor of Arkansas? All were demeaned, discredited, defamed by Clinton’s adoring sycophants in the media.

This reprehensible behavior has not even put a chink in the immoral cloak the Democrats gleefully wrap themselves in and demonize anyone who dares to do as they do from one who is not a member of their “religion.” Do Obama’s dedicated followers give a hoot about what any Democrat does of an immoral nature? I doubt it. An anecdote comes from a comment by a NY woman who says she’s much more concerned about what he (Weiner) does for his constituency than his private peccadilloes. She wasn’t asked to be specific about what he’s done for his district and expressed no concern regarding what his private inclinations might say about other aspects of his character. Is he a liar, a cheat, an embezzler, a self aggrandizing influence peddler? No! This is just one minor glitch and “none of us is perfect” don’t you know.

The oft stated Republican claim that “character matters” is apparently an outdated, meaningless campaign slogan. Liberals are not going to self destruct. They’re going to need lots of help from Republicans with the guts to get down and dirty in the Democrats gutter. Professing to own the moral high ground by staying up on it has proven to be a losing strategy; over and over again.

I agree with the logic but I think the point is too broad. It is difficult to pinpoint an encompassing set of rules that constitute the whole of morality.

Liberals can argue that they are moral just about different things. They can say I agree with conservatives that lecherous infidelity is immoral and Weiner is guily of that. They can then say that he is not a hypocrite because he did not go around preaching against lecherous infidelity before he was caught. True, but irrelevent.

Intersting twist comes though if you hold for example that homosexual sex in restrooms is not immoral and then argue that a public official who preached against it and was caught is guilty of hypocricy. True enough but is he also immoral? What they are really saying is that his acts against homosexuality were immoral, not his sex life, which is a whole other argument.

The hypocricy argument, like the argument that deception or lying is itself wrong is specious. Lying can be a good thing in certain circumstances. If I told a column of advancing Nazis that the Jews all went to the South when they are really hiding in the North, nobody would argue that I was being immoral.

I agree with spindok – liberals have morals, just about different things. Supposedly, they’re not all hung up about people’s sex lives. They may be unabashed libertines, but they don’t like people pointing out that they are also American aristocrats, many of them with a higher net worth and more priviliges and perks than any evil big-business CEO. Kind of hard to live that way while claiming you’re looking out for “America’s most vulnerable.”

Hypocrisy runs rampant in all political parties just as it does in the churches of all religions and all societies. Hypocrisy is taught and learned!

To point out one persons or entities hypocrisy over your own hypocrisy is disingenuous.

As to our political hypocrisy, none holds a candle to what became the religious right of the GOP who now, have relabeled themselves as the conservatives….most often, [the] moral conservatives of the nation….in fact, the moral authorities of the world!

That said, the people of all political persuasions select and elect the hypocrisy within government as a matter of their constitutional right for majority representation.

I don’t much care what a Congressman does in his private life, as long as it’s between consenting adults and he doesn’t try to cover it up. If it involves minors (as it may in this case), then it’s potentially criminal. If it’s covered up, then it exposes the Congressman as a lying sack of sh*t, and makes me wonder what else he may be lying about (e.g., claiming that a budget busting healthcare plan will actually save money). Whether he’s on the left or on the right, I don’t want a lying scumbag as a Congressman.

I’m probably stating the obvious here, but the folks quoted at the beginning of the post are employing a two-step argument most likely because they can’t follow a three-step argument. Which means that most of this post is beyond them.

Zombie – Dead on as per usual.. I say give the Liberals/Progressives enough rope they will eventually hang ‘their own selves’…

Once many a politician labels the truth as a lie, can anyone trust them to speak the truth afterward? Trust me Weiner is NOT in a league of his own…

Why do people who lie, Lie? Because they [Do Know] right from wrong. This is called [Morals or having Morals]. So, is being [amoral] a choice?

I suspect that putting this in the perspective of Liberals and Progressives they [choose] the Low road [amoral] so as per usual, they don’t have to contend with those pesky things called accountability and responsibility for themselves or their actions. This way they can make [everyone else] ‘pay’ for their poor
life choices and amoral behavior. I believe their ‘world’ they created is going to crash and Hard…it’s just a matter of time… BTW – I totally agree with #53 Jeff H (and many others here – dead on!)

i was totally with you, zombie…until i started reading these comments. all of this ranting about single moms, two dads, anal sex, porn, ‘flouncing interior decorators’ and such has me wondering whose side i’m really on here ?
maybe the libs do have a point to make about rigid, sex-negative, and bigoted ‘morality’ after all.

I really have nothing to add to this discussion…just wanted to thank you people for having it. It has been fascinating, and has cleared up a number of issues that were confusing me. It’s nice to see a civil discussion on the Internet, where explanations are trying to be made, instead of insults being hurled. I may have to start hanging out here more often!

Weiner (and Rangel, Waters, Kerry, Clinton, etc. etc. etc.) were caught cheating and lying.
Then they cheated and lied some more to cover it up.
Now they say they will never lie nor cheat again; They are sorry.
All is resolved. They can go back to being trusted with billions of our tax dollars, and enact laws that are impartial to everyone, even Conservatives.
Yep! And my cat will start using toilet paper.
Liberal Logic 101.

Good Lord, what a silly argument. You make me sad to be a Conservative.

You’ve completely failed to establish that Liberalism is fundamentally amoral. The difference is we claim the moral high ground, so when we fall it’s from a farther height. Liberals say people are complex and imperfect.

Incorrect. Conservatives, in general, hold to certain traditional principles of government which we believe are essential if Americans in general are to enjoy maximum liberty with maximum prosperity. One of these principles is limited government – enough government to allow people to achieve the foregoing benefits and no more.

Liberals today are the ones claiming the moral high ground. They want to use the power of government to ensure that the “most vulnerable” sectors of the population are adequately fed, clothed, educated, and medicated, and can exercise their Constitutional rights as fully as those who are, presumably, less vulnerable. They are willing to expand the government as much as necessary to achieve those goals.

Liberals actually say that there is no moral standard other than the politically correct one that they espouse. Traditional morality is considered immoral and they do not subscibe to it unless it is politically convenient and helps them gain election. Morality, ethics are fluid and only serve to promote the revolutionary aims of the revolution, progressivism, and the elitist state. The fact of the matter is that there ideology at the end of the day is indeed immoral from the standpoint of a free constitutional Republic and the values that underpin this republic as defined by our founding fathers.

Not only are leftists hypocrites but they are surely blind. Hysterically they keep going on and on about the “evil far-right religious right” when in reality most of us far-right wingers and traditional conservatives are pretty nice and most of us are underground blogging or writing at forums with little political power.

Liberals can’t get into their tiny heads that most ‘conservatives’ out there are either neoconservatives, libertarians, capitalists or liberal ‘conservatives’ (e.g. Tea Party). I just wished they stopped screaming about Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, FOX News and other outlets or figures.

Liberals try to control everybodies lives. I do a lot of driveing and during the 2008 campaign I noticed that whenever I saw someone in the fast lane on I-95 that was driving slow, he or she had an Obama bumper sticker on their car. It is still true today. I still see the same thing. They want to control other people. Driving slow in the fast lane is the only thing some of these fools have.

Progressivism is not about winning arguments, nor is it remotely concerned about logic and fact.

“Evidence” – “that which is seen” – is an option only used when advantageous to the progressive agenda.

It’s not about the greater good.

It is the assumption of power for power’s sake. It is evil.

Evil is not defeated by an elegantly crafted argument. True evil is destroyed.

That is the critical disconnect where people allow evil to advance. They know the arguments are at best weak, at worst outright fantasy (global warming, Malthus, Sanger, Silent Spring, CFL’s, carbon taxes, ethnic and gender studies) but do not realize that the evil that is allowed to exist is the evil that eventually consumes you.

We are in a lot of trouble.

The Obama administration is not incompetent. Nor is it well intentioned. It has a definite agenda and goal set easily discernible to anybody who has paid attention to Statist tyranny for the past two hundred years.

You’re missing a fundamental point in the liberal argument. We aren’t saying “liberalism is fundamentally amoral”, instead we’re saying that a politician’s personal life, so long as they aren’t breaking the law, is none of our business.

Why should I care that Joe Senator is screwing around on his wife? Is it immoral for him to break his marriage vows? Yes. Does it harm his ability to do his job? No.

However, if he has been running on a morality platform, and is in fact immoral, then we know he’s a liar, and liars should not be elected officials.